Okinawa

This heartbreaking manga, by an award-winning cartoonist, examines the history of Okinawa and its military occupation. An essential manga classic presented in English for the first time.

Publisher Marketing: There's a lot of potential for this to be taught in high school and university classes as an examination of war, occupation, and tradition. Higa's characters are supremely well-developed for such short vignettes, and their motivations are well-defined for their actions. Higa's monumental work sits firmly among such other notable ruminations on history as Keiji Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen , Shigeru Mizuki's Showa , Art Spiegelman's Maus , and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis .-- "Booklist, Starred Review" Review Quotes : While these stories are unflinching and often disturbing, they're a must-read for fans of historical non-fiction.-- "Otaku USA Magazine" Review Quotes : Okinawa elegantly explores the painful realities of colonialism... Higa captures quiet moments of human connection, even as he unsparingly documents the ongoing loss of the islands' Indigenous culture and the suffering of their people.-- "Washington Post" Review Quotes : If you're a fan of Keiji Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen or Shigeru Mizuki's Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths , this will add to your splendid collection of manga about World War II.-- "Gosh! Comics" Review Quotes : Okinawa is a powerful work that asks tough questions without much varnish, making the reader uncomfortable in all the right ways.-- "Multiversity Comics" Review Quotes : an endearing and enduring collection ... The diversity of perspectives presented in this collection is impressive.-- "AIPT Comics" Review Quotes : As heartbreaking and heavy as it was to read, I could not recommend this manga enough. ... it was raw, and it was real, and I honestly think that means more than anything else.-- "International Examiner" Review Quotes : Okinawa is a beautiful collection of short stories that offer you a glimpse into the life of a masterful talent whose clarity of line illustrates a consciousness that will entice you as much as any collection of literary tales by Hemingway, Borges, or Munroe. Pure artistry.-- "Hyperallergic" Brief Description : "A peaceful, independent kingdom until its annexation by the Japanese Empire in the 19th century, Okinawa was the site of the most destructive land battle of the Pacific War. Today, the archipelago is Japan's poorest prefecture and unwilling host to 75% of all US military bases in Japan. Okinawa brings together two collections of intertwined stories by the island's pre-eminent mangaka, Susumu Higa, which reflect on this difficult history and pull together traditional Okinawan spirituality, the modern-day realities of the continuing US military occupation, and the senselessness of the War. The first collection, Sword of Sand, is a ground level, unflinching look at the horrors of the Battle of Okinawa. Higa then turns an observant eye to the present-day in Mabui (Okinawan for "spirit"), where he explores how the American occupation has irreversibly changed the island prefecture, through the lens of the archipelago's indigenous spirituality and the central character of the yuta priestess."-- Publisher Marketing : 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction - Longlist

Format: Hardcover | Pages: 544 | Publication Date: 2023-08-22